Nice Article. It is encouraging to see efforts that support freedom to innovate. Research and scientific discoveries require a culture that fosters creativity and rewards innovation. Regretfully, high tech is losing this culture with the adoption of operational models and governance economies that reward predictive outcomes instead of hectic and even chaotic innovation. This loss is aggravated with the systematic replacement of industry experts with jack-of-trade generalists that fail to see the value of R&D and manage without deep understanding of the industry they are serving.

The world has changed, so I hope the new Bell Labs will adapt to that. I worked for Southwestern Bell during the summers while going to school back in the late seventies, so I have a soft spot for the old Bell system. I hope they will be able to build something special, but it will not be the same.

When Google hired a bunch of old Bell Labs researchers it became clear to me that Google was to be the heir apparent to Bell Labs. Google has the monopoly, the money and the talent. ALU isn't even profitable with 1/40th the market cap of Google, and no monopoly.

It is sad that one needs to be politically correct these days! It is about time that Bell Labs goes back to its former status. While doing so, I hope they support outside innovators / startups for IP & incubation and eventually licensing all across the US.--docdivakar

Yes to all your queries. President Weldon told me that Bell Labs would not just be pursuing innovations and basic science discoveries that Alcatel-Lucent could turn into businesses and market themselves, but that they would also license discoveries outside their core business model so that the whole world could benefit from them. He sounded very egalitarian and benevolent in that he sees the world facing many overwhelming challenges in the quest to improve everyone's living conditions, especially that of the poorest in our population. The Bell Labs Prize is supposed to bring in outside innovators with ideas about how to improve our world and will serve as an incubator whether the inventor joins Bell Labs or decides to license the IP for their own startup.

Bless you for caring enough to keep an eye on your article showing you care. I've responded to articles with factual errors that were never corrected nor responded to so I've soured on responding to articles.

I was thirsty to learn more about Bell Labs potentially rising back up to some of its former greatness and just wanted more.

Yes, the original headline was "Bell Labs Reborn" but I thought it might be associated with being "Born Again" so I chose "Restored to Former Status" meaning that it would pursue basic scientific discoveries that were made while solving the world's biggest industry problems, as it once did when pioneering semiconductors, communications and materials science. Some of Bell Labs future basic scientific discoveries may or may not have commercial value to Alcatel-Lucent, but of course they will try to find applications of them that do. Thanks for your prespective